‘Do I really suck that much?’
Being on the receiving end of a rejection letter is never much fun, especially if you really wanted to work for the firm that sent it to you. But sometimes, rejection letters can be so cruel that they’ll make you wonder why you ever wanted to work for that firm in the first place.
Take, for example, this horrendous rejection letter that a high-flying Am Law 100 firm once sent:
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When I graduated in 1991, a friend (on law review at a very good but not top tier law school) got a rejection letter from Cleary that I’ll never forget. It said only, “Dear Jane, Thank you for applying to be an associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton. We do not now, nor do we ever expect to have, a position for someone with your qualifications.”
I took a copy, redacted my friend’s information, and gave it to a friend who worked at Cleary to bring to recruiting to tell them how awful that language was. They changed it immediately, but wow. Which member of their recruiting team at the time thought that was acceptable to begin with? How many people got the super-demoralizing message that sadly, they will NEVER be good enough?
Good lord, Cleary really knew how to make a person feel like complete crap about themselves back in the day. This was almost 30 years ago, so we’re confident that the firm’s form rejection letters are a little less nasty today.
Have a rejection letter you’d like to share with us? Send it our way via email (subject line: “Rejection Letter”). Feel free to redact your identifying information or mention in your transmittal message that you’d like us to redact.
We may receive more submissions than we’ll have the ability to use. But don’t worry — if we don’t print yours, we promise not to send you a rejection letter.
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Staci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.